In this article, the first half-century of economics at the Kyoto University is reviewed from the viewpoint of the ‘history orientation’ of economics. From the 20th century onward, Kyoto rapidly grew into one of the most active research centers for economics that regularly published both Japanese and Western language journals. Kyoto became the hub of policy studies as well as social and economic history. However, due to its involvement in the wartime policy, economics research in Kyoto suffered severe setbacks after 1945. The vital historical elements in these years — the influence of the German Historical School and Marxism, the quest for the “Japanese Political Economy”, the influence of Max Weber, the Leninist turn, and the “historical consciousness” — are successively examined.